Senior Zac Kerin has been named to the 2013 Rimington Trophy Watch List for the most outstanding center in the nation. A little more about the award:

The Rimington Trophy is presented annually to the Most Outstanding Center in NCAA Division I-A College Football. Since its inception, the Rimington Trophy has raised over $2 million. The fourteen-year old award is overseen by the Boomer Esiason Foundation, which is committed to finding a cure for cystic fibrosis and has raised over $100 million for CF Research.

Dave Rimington, the award’s namesake, was a consensus first-team All-America center at the University of Nebraska in 1981 and 1982, during which time he became the John Outland Trophy’s only double winner as the nation’s finest college interior lineman. For more on the Rimington Trophy and a list of past recipients, visit www.rimingtontrophy.com

The winner of the Rimington Trophy will be honored at a presentation banquet at the Rococo Theater in Lincoln, Nebraska on January 11, 2014. Kerin is one of two representatives from the MAC conference — the other is BGSU’s David Kekuewa. Congratulations to Zac on being named to this list.

A few days ago, we covered the rushing component of the offensive production that would be returning next year. This post is dedicated to the receiving production and what portion of that we can expect to return this season.

Here’s the total receiving production from last year (non-returners in gold):

You’re notice that we’re losing three players to graduation who accounted for roughly 275 yards and 3 touchdowns last season. The good news is that we return a little better than 92% (in both yardage gained and number of receptions) of our receiving production from last season. Does this mean we’ll have roughly the same production? Absolutely not — however, this is an indicator of what the players are capable of producing given the right conditions. There isn’t a strong indicator of whether the two quarterback system is a thing of the past or whether that will be implemented again, so the impact of that situation will certainly be reflected in the receiving production this season.

The top 5 players on this list account for better than 84% of the yardage gained last season which should give us hope for a solid receiving game this season. Factor in the player progression during the off-season and a bevy of new talent and we should be in good shape come August 31st.

Straight from UTRockets.com:

John Kuceyeski has been hired as the University of Toledo’s director of football operations, head coach Matt Campbell announced today. Kuceyeski will coordinate most non-coaching aspects of the Rocket football program, including budget, team travel and team meals.

Kuceyeski joins the Rockets after a brief stint as the director of player personnel and on-campus recruiting coordinator at Western Michigan. He began his career as a student-manager and undergraduate assistant coach at Penn State before working for three seasons with the football program at Northwestern.

This is an important but little discussed or truly appreciated facet of a football program — Welcome to the Rocket family, John.

As the coming football season looms in the distance, we wanted to take at how much offensive production we have lost as players move on from the team. In this post, we will focus on rushing production and what the Rockets will return this season.

Here’s the total rushing production from last year (non-returners in gold):

You’ll notice right from the start, that we don’t lose much rushing production. We will return about 92% of our rushing production from last year, which is a higher percentage than in the past few seasons. While Pasquale and Dantin were solid role players, we’re not likely to see a marked downturn in rushing production with their departures.

The OHSFCA annual North-South Classic will be held Saturday, April 27th, at Dayton’s Welcome Stadium. This year, the nation’s longest running high school all-star game will feature two separate games, one for DIV I-II-III (kick off at 4 PM) and one for DIV IV-V-VI (kickoff at 7 PM).

Several future Rockets will be suiting up this weekend in both games:

D I-II-III NORTH TEAM
Marquese Moore, DL, 6-1, 285, Toledo Whitmer, Toledo
John Stepec, DL, 6-4, 250, Mentor Lake Catholic, Toledo

D I-II-III SOUTH TEAM
Elijah Nkansah, OL, 6-6, 305, Mason, Toledo

D IV-V-VI NORTH TEAM
Nick Keller, OL, 6-0, 225, Genoa, Toledo

D IV-V-VI SOUTH TEAM
Zach Yousey, DB, 6-1, 195, Harvest Prep, Toledo

For more information about the game, head this way. Or to view live stats online, head over here.

From UTRockets.com:

Junior reserve running back Ricky Pringle rushed for two touchdowns and senior quarterback Terrance Owens completed 19-of-29 passes for 223 yards to lead the Gold team to a 21-10 victory over the Blue team in the annual Blue and Gold spring football scrimmage at the Glass Bowl Friday night.

Good to see some familiar and new names making an impact in the game. We expected to see names mentioned like Fluellen, Owens, Detmer, Russell, Norrils — but new(er) players making an impact is what we really want to see like Pringle (who isn’t new but has seen little playing time), Woodside, Murdock, Larkin and Voss.

With the season opener at Florida on August 31st, the Rockets need to continue to mature and work toward becoming a stable unit on both sides of the ball. An opponent like Florida will test all facets of our game and we have to be ready. A positive take-away from this game is that we saw some of our talent on display and that we’ve heading in the right direction to be ready for that first game. Keep up the hard work, Rockets.

Straight from Pro Football Talk:

The Tampa Bay Buccaneers continued to add to their wide receiver position on Thursday with the signing of former Denver Broncos receiver Eric Page.

Good to see Page get another chance to take his skills to the next level after an ACL injury cut his run with the Broncos short.

Page is the University of Toledo’s all-time leading receiver and was signed by the Broncos as an undrafted free agent last year. He was released by Denver in July with an injury settlement after suffering a torn ACL in training camp. He caught 306 passes for 3,443 yards and 25 touchdowns in three seasons for Toledo.

Page joins Danny Noble, another Rocket-alum, on the Tampa Bay roster. Good luck to them both.

The Rockets have been working hard this spring preparing for the 2013 season. Come out to the Glass Bowl on April 12 to get your first glimpse at this year’s Rockets!